Fluch des Geistes
by Ceville
Summary: Joanna Reid wasn't one to hold a grudge, or throw a hissy fit when things didn't go her own way. She felt, however, that being murdered was something to get a little upset about. And annoying the man who murdered her until he wanted to hurl himself off of a bridge, seemed the least she could do to get even. Bane/OC friendship - possible romance.
1. CH1 The Crossroads

**Fluch des Geistes; **  
**Bane's** **Ghost.**

**Disclaimer****: **I WISH I owned anything from the Batman series... Unfortunately, most of it happens to belong to DC Comics, and Christopher Nolan. Though not from lack of trying, on my part. :I

**Author's Note: **I know, I know, I need to settle down and finally finish one of my stories... I just saw "The Dark Knight Rises" tonight and I just _couldn't_ help myself - Tom Hardy's performance of Bane was awesome, and the movie itself was just as amazing. The plot-bunnies demanded I appease their cravings, so this story sort of just formed by itself over the past few hours since I left the cinema.

I'm fairly certain this is just going to be a friendship-fic, because Bane seems to be a little difficult to write romantically... I don't know, a friendship fic just seems like a lot more fun, then a romance one. But who knows! If the story progresses that way, it progresses that way~

And if it _does _progress that way... if you're expecting a lovey-dovey, mushy-Bane, then you've come to the wrong place, I'm afraid. I'm not saying he isn't capable of great emotion - he's obviously capable; Talia's more enough evidence of that. He just doesn't seem the type to be ridiculously, overly maudlin with every beautiful woman that crosses his path. I also felt like... his affection for Talia was that of an older sibling, or father figure - he protected her as a child, and sacrificed himself to save her, so... I feel like their connection goes far beyond that of romance; it just seemed more profound to me than that. I'm not sure yet, though, we'll see.

ANYWAY - if there IS going to be any romance in this story... It's a long, _long_ way away. So don't expect them to start declaring love for each other or anything like that!

* * *

_**J**_oanna felt... funny.

It wasn't quite as elaborate an explanation of her current feelings. But... at the same time, it seemed to be the only word that really summed it all up. She supposed she felt light... Airy and light-headed, like she was floating or something..

She lifted her hands, staring at them with a frown. There was nothing different about them, she noted, flipping them around a few times curiously... They didn't look any different, but at the same time, they just felt... tingly? It was something like the 'pins and needles' sensation, though far lighter and not quite so irritating.

"What on earth...?" She mumbled, lowering her arms with a furrowed brow. She surveyed her surroundings, body twisting at the waist as the young woman tried to gain her bearings. Steps were tentatively taken, moving her slowly down the dark alleyway she was in – her senses were on full alert. Every Gothamite knew to avoid such places – they were the places where bad things happened, very bad things that the 'civilised' people never really spoke about anymore. They were just... bad things. Or so she'd been told all her life.

The streets were nowhere near as bad as they'd been eight years ago, when she'd been a mere fifteen-year-old girl... The death of Harvey Dent had changed a lot, for the better. Still, no city was free of crime, and venturing down dark, dank alleyways so late at night was a recipe for disaster no matter where you were.

She frowned, noting that the cardigan she'd been wearing had seemingly disappeared, and upon realising that she no longer felt as if she were about to freeze. Her family wasn't exactly poor, but she couldn't afford to be losing random articles of clothing all of the time; so where in the blazes had her cardigan gone?

"And why is my head so fuzzy?" She questioned aloud, quickly glancing around once she realised she'd spoken. Speaking caused noise; noise was heard; she didn't want to be heard.

It was true though... Her head _was _fuzzy. It was that unfocused feeling one had, when stuck between sleep and wakefulness. She could see, and hear, and speak, but... She didn't _feel_ quite right. Something was amiss, she just couldn't figure out what _it _was.

Minutes passed as she continued to walk, weaving her way in and out of the downright creepy area she'd somehow managed to get herself into – it definitely wasn't the normal route she took every night, when returning home from the little diner where she worked. And she knew better then to stray from the safe paths, so... where was she? And _why_ was she even there in the first place? None of it made any sense, and if there was anything Joanna adhered to, it was common sense.

… _okay_, maybe she wasn't quite so wise or street-smart as she made herself out to be, but _still_! She liked to know what was going on, and at the moment, she had _absoloutely_ no idea; a fact that both terrified and irked her.

The sound of a trash-can being knocked made her jump, and she froze, staring at what was near pitch-black darkness before her. She gnawed at her lip, then lifted a hand to gnaw at her thumbnail anxiously. Seconds of deliberation passed, and then with a shaky nod, she spun on her heel – she obviously wasn't getting anywhere going forward, so maybe going back would work better?

Going back seemed to be just as useless an idea as going forward had been, she realised sourly, a good while later. The path just never seemed to end! She never came across any people, she still hadn't seen a _single_ road, and there was not a light to be found!

She stopped at yet another crossroad, spinning on her sneaker-ed heel to gaze down each and every option before her. They were all the same; dark, malevolent and ominous. She didn't even know _how _they could be malevolent or ominous... Something about the whole area just felt so... _wrong_. It was messed up, she just want to go ho-

Joanna paused in her mental complaints, blinking and then squinting as a light appeared in the distance. She blinked again, taken aback, and then a wide, almost crazy grin appeared on her face. Finally! Some light! She immediately began down that way, an almost _perky _bounce to her step as she hurried towards the light.

Closer, and closer – every footstep brought her that much closer to the light, but the closer she got, the sharper her mind became. A face kept flashing behind her eyes, a frightening face – not because any of the features were disfigured, but because the only features she could see were the eyes; and though the eyes were a very pretty shade of blue, it was the spider-like mask covering the face – the _man's_ face, she noted- that caused such panic within her.

She kept seeing it... Over, and over... Like a film being rewound, and then played. On repeat.

She'd never met him, she knew that for sure – such a strangely masked face would be forever imprinted in her memory, had she met him. So... where had she seen him?

She frowned, running her hands through her thoroughly knotted hair as the girl tried to recall memories that didn't want to be remembered... Tears began to well up in her eyes, and she blinked furiously, refusing to cry like a baby – she was an adult, and yes, she was thoroughly confused, but that was no reason to act like a child!

It wasn't like anyone was trying to kill her or-

Joanna froze. A chill ran up and down her spine, and in an instant, it began to come back to her.

She'd been late home, for her little brother's twelfth birthday; taking a shortcut through some of the less amiable alleyways had seemed like the only way to get home quickly, with the birthday cake she'd promised... The cake! Where was the cake...?

On the ground... The white cardboard box was being crushed, stomped to the ground by a ridiculously large boot... Why was the cake being trodden on? The man! The one with the mask – he was hurting someone! No... No, she realised, feeling weak in the knees, he'd _killed_ someone... And she'd seen.

And he'd seen her.

Those frighteningly huge hands, they'd snapped that poor man's neck. She'd stumbled upon the crime, and her quiet escape had been far too slow... He'd lunged at her, with speed and strength that seemed inhuman, and with what seemed to be a sincere apology, and a simple twist of his wrist...

Everything had gone a bright white.

And then everything had been dark.

He'd killed her.

He'd... _killed _her.

He'd killed... _her._

"I'm dead," She said aloud, her face pale, and her eyes wide. "I'm dead. I'm... _dead_." Her throat began to tighten, her eyes burning as tears began to well up once again – though this time she didn't bother to blink them away. "I'm dead. I'm dead..." She repeated it over and over again, her mind stuck on those two, simple little words... Shock was the only thing she felt, and a strange emptiness.

It was an emotion that fizzled out all too quickly – replaced by an all consuming rage that made her fists clench to the point of her knuckles looking as if they'd protrude from her skin; her teeth grinding together loudly, her eyebrows furrowing deeply as a snarl appeared on her sickly face.

"I'm dead... because _he _killed me..." She ground out. "He just... he just _killed_ me! I didn't even- I never did any-" She let out a little scream, glaring at the light before her. If anything from the TV shows and movies were true, that light was her one way ticket to the other side. With another angry scream, her pain and fury being let out in an animalistic cry that seemed to bounce and echo around her, Joanna turned from the light; storming back towards the dark.

She wasn't going to any other side... Not while _he_ was still waltzing about the place, snapping people's necks! Oh no, she wasn't going _an__ywhere_ until the madman that had snuffed her life out like it was nothing _knew _the pain she felt. The anger and the rage and the _hate_ she was feeling. He was going to suffer.

She'd make sure of that.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Theeeeere. It's short, I know, but just a prologue to test the waters, if you will.  
I'd love to hear from you all - so _please _feel free to leave a review!


	2. CH2 A Terrible Idea

**Fluch des Geistes;  
Bane's Ghost.**

**Disclaimer: **Still don't own anything. 'Cept for Joanna. I'll gladly swap her for ownership of Bane!

**Author's Note: **Chapter two is heeeeeere! I'm so freaking amazed at how many people added this to their alert/favourite list! And to everybody who reviewed - thank you _so_ much, I appreciate it a _lot_. I will admit, I've barely even started writing Bane, and he's already causing me trouble, haha! He's such a difficult personality to grasp - capable of destroying a city with nary a care, but then also of protecting a child at the cost of his own safety and health. He shows humour, but he also demands respect. He'll be amicable and pleasant, but scare the crap out of the people he's speaking to at the same time - it's all very complicated, haha! I only hope that I can keep the man in character - I'm sure you'll all let me know if I stray! ;D  
Anyway... Here's chapter two!

* * *

_**T**_hings weren't going quite as she'd planned them to. After her determined and somewhat over-dramatic inner monologue about exacting revenge upon the brute of a man who'd killed her, Joanna had stormed back off into the darkness, expecting to somehow appear back in the alley where she'd been murdered.

After what felt like _hours _later, she was still walking – though her furious stomping had downgraded into dejected and clumsy dragging of the feet. The anger she'd felt had slowly ebbed away, replaced by a depressing sense of hopelessness. From what she could gather,she was somehow stuck in that place between life and death. She'd always been a fairly open-minded sort of girl, but an actual... _crossroads_ was just too out there. If she hadn't been stuck there herself, she never would have _really _considered its existence to be a possibility.

She also wouldn't have ever thought that it'd taken on the shape of the darkest, dingiest back-streets of Gotham, but then again... Beggars couldn't be choosers. At least she was by herself – no unwanted company of the nasty, hellish sort. There wasn't any fire or brimstone either, so that was always a good sign, right?

"How am I even supposed to get outta here?" She finally exclaimed, coming to a stop. She threw her arms out, spinning around to stare at her surroundings. "There are no windows, no doors, no roads, just more alleys! How am I supposed to get back; this makes no _sense_!"

Joanna, admittedly, wasn't exactly an expert on the supernatural, or the afterlife, but she'd expected more than _this_. Shouldn't there have been some door for her to magically come across, and after opening it, shouldn't she have been able to get back to the "real world" or something? That's the way it'd always been, in the movies at least... But there wasn't any magical, teleporting-door for her to walk through.

There was _nothing_.

Just this never-ending series of intersections and paths.

It was _maddening._

"Where the _hell_ is my magic door?" She screeched shrilly, letting out a frustrated cry before flopping down onto her backside; sitting cross-legged with her arms folded, the very likeness of a petulant child. "I just want to get back..." She groaned, rubbing at her eyes tiredly, looking to the side with a forlorn sigh.

Green eyes blinked once, then again and she frowned as she stared down another alleyway. There was something... different about this one. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but there was just something... _strange _about this particular alley. With a nimbleness that belied her exhaustion, Joanna leapt to her feet, and then, cautiously, began to tiptoe down the dark path; the strange tingling feeling she'd been experiencing since waking up intensifying with very step she took.

Her chest began to feel heavy, and she glanced around with panic, coming to a halt as she realised that the alleyway was shrinking with every step she took. Frowning, she continued forward a bit more, letting out a little cry of fright when her elbow scraped painfully against dark, dirty brick. Joanna stopped, rubbing at her bleeding limb with teary eyes – a small gust of chilly air rushed at her, and she stumbled backwards to escape the freezing air coming from the other end. "I'm cold..." She murmured aloud, cuddling her arms to her body for warmth. "I can feel the cold..." She stopped, sniffing; her nose wrinkling seconds later. "Ugh! What _is _that smell?"

It smelt... like trash? Like garbage. And in that instant, Joanna knew that this was her way out.

_This_ was her magic door.

It was a cold, smelly, gradually-shrinking magic door. But a magic door, nonetheless. She could handle squeezing through the space, if it meant escaping from this 'limbo' she was stuck in.

Then again... if it got much smaller, she wasn't so sure that she'd be able to fit.

Her thumbnail was immediately shoved in-between her front teeth, gnawing at the poor nail as she thought; torn between fear of the impossibly tiny space before her, and being stuck in limbo, or wherever the hell she currently was. Being crushed, or at the very least stuck in a teeny tiny spot, or left alone... forever.

If she backed away, and let fear get the best of her, she'd be stuck in this strange, lonely middle place. All by herself. The monster who'd killed her would most likely kill again; more innocent lives ended far before their due time. With an angry intake of breath, she nodded to herself, and twisting her body sideways, the somewhat slender girl began to slip down between the brick walls.

The further she got, the tighter it became, her chest began to stick, her hip-bones scraping painfully against the brick. Normally, had this been _real _life and had she been _alive_Joanna wouldn't have even bothered going down the narrow path to begin with. But she craved vengeance.

It sounded over-dramatic, over-exaggerated – like something out of a cliché film or television series, but it was true. Every time it felt as if she couldn't continue, and had to turn back, his face flashed in front of her eyes, and she pushed forwards, gritting her teeth against the burning, stinging pain of the bricks tearing through her clothes and flesh.

That stinging, burning pain – paired with the claustrophobic feeling of pushing her skeleton through a space it obviously shouldn't fit through – was beginning to be too much and she felt her vision begin to blur.

_'I can't...' _She thought, sobbing by this point. _'I can't do it... It hurts... It hurts!' _

Her blurry vision began to darken, and just as she felt that familiar feeling one had before fainting, Joanna felt herself fall.

And fall.

And fall.

And _fall_.

She did the only thing that she really could do.

She screamed, and she screamed and she _screamed_.

Magic door, her ass.

* * *

"_**O**_omph!" Joanna grunted as she hit the ground, whimpering to herself as she lifted her groggy, throbbing head to look around. Was... was she back? She blinked, pushing herself up onto her hands and knees to blearily examine her surroundings. Over-flowing dumpster, dirty, moss-covered bricks, and ridiculously aged, cracked pavement beneath her feet.

This was it.

This was where she'd died.

And if this was the alley where she'd died, and the moment _when_ she'd died, then that meant... She pushed herself up onto her knees, swivelling around to face the darker end of the alley; glaring at the hulking figure crouching before her, cradling something -when compared to him- slender and limp in his arms.

She realised, with a sickening lurch of her stomach, that the slender and limp _thing_ was her_ corpse_.

Making the man whose hands were currently cradling her corpse's broken neck, none other than her murderer. He dropped her, and she watched in horror as her own lifeless body hit the ground, the dark thankfully hiding any recognisable features from her eyes. An overwhelming sense of fear filled her, and she held a shaking hand up to her mouth. This was the man that had killed her.

She only had a view from the back, but from what the woman could see... it was no _wonder_ he'd only needed to turn his hand to the side to snap her neck. He was _huge_. Watching him stand up only served to prove this fact, he must have been well over six-feet tall, dwarfing her average five-foot-four height by more than a few inches. A baggy aviator-looking jacket that had seen far better days adorned the behemoth's body, and when she realised he was going to turn around, instinctive fear and self-preservation made her scramble for safety in the shadows of the dumpster.

He stomped past, and she could barely see, but she was still able to make out the strange, frightening mask on his face. Her brow furrowed, when he paid her no attention – she wasn't exactly perfectly hidden, in fact, he'd seen her in poorer light and from further away before her... unfortunate accident.

So why hadn't he seen her?

And then she gave herself a mental slap to the face.

She was _dead_! Of _course_ he couldn't see her! And with this realisation, came a feeling of safety, making her feel completely alright with standing up and waltzing into the middle of the alley. She folded her arms, and glanced him up and down with a sneer to her lips; her normally quiet, mousy personality pushed aside so her anger and hatred for the man could take the reigns.

He was a _monster_.

He'd treated her like she was nothing. Inconsequential, completely unimportant to him. She'd wager that her life had about as much meaning to him as dirt. His apathetic apology before he'd killed her was proof of that – like he'd bumped into her on the street, or knocked something from her hand.

"You don't say _sorry _and then _kill _someone!" She snarled out loud – if he couldn't see her, he sure as hell couldn't hear her. "What kind of nutjob are you? Oh, it's _fine_ that you snapped my neck, yeah, don't worry about it – we're cool!" She stomped her foot, pointing at him furiously. "We are _not_ cool, do you hear me? We are _so_ not cool!"

An unintelligible cry of anger escaped her, and she snapped down to swipe an empty soda can from the ground – not even bothering to question how she could pick up something corporeal when she herself wasn't. She hurled it through the air, and grinned savagely when it collided with the man's broad back. He froze, and she lifted her head proudly, resting her hands on her hips.

"Yeah, you try and figure out who threw that, you jackass!"

"That, my dear girl, was a terrible idea." The voice was deep, distorted and almost echoing, with an accent she couldn't quite discern.

She blinked, the hands on her hips faltering and falling limp at her sides when she met his gaze. He'd turned around. And he was staring at her. Oh good _God_, he couldn't see her, could he?

_Yes_, she thought numbly, watching him take slow, ominous steps towards her, _I think he can see me._

"Crap."

* * *

**Author's Note**: Doooooooone! I hope it's okay - I'd love to hear from you all - let me know what you thought, yeah?  
Thanks for reading!


	3. Author's Note - CHAPTER THREE SNEAK PEEK

**Author's Note**

Hey guys! I'm REALLY sorry about how there hasn't been an update recently. I've been SUPER busy with work and uni, and now that exams are a few weeks away, all I seem to have time for is studying. I _know_ I should be trying to update, and I do have a good chunk of the next chapter completed, I've just been so busy that I haven't had time to finish.

I understand that it's frustrating, but in saying that, getting reviews with stuff like "someone else finish the story if the author won't" doesn't exactly make me feel all that inclined to write any more chapters. Not trying to throw a hissy fit, or anything, but it's just a bit rude and snarky. I'm doing my best to write the next chapter, life's just being a massive poop-face. ;P

I have chapters from later on in the story finished, I'm just working on the first few, so _please_ bear with me - the next chapter should be uploaded within a few days! Until then, here's a bit of a sneak peek~

As always, thanks for taking the time to read!

Ceville~

_**SNEAK PEEK FOR CHAPTER THREE  
**_

"I killed you." He rumbled curiously, in a matter-of-fact tone, head tilting ever so slightly to the side. His eyes darted upwards, looking over, and she realised with a jolt that he was staring at her crumpled remains.

_'Maybe if I ignore him... He'll leave me alone?' _She thought weakly, taking a very tiny step away from the man, trying to be subtle but failing rather miserably if the sharpening of gaze was any indication.

"How peculiar..." He stated, lifting his arms – an action that made her freeze in terror, regardless of her current status as a ghost, and then relax again as he folded them against an impossibly broad chest.

"He can't hear you..." She murmured quietly to herself, wringing her hands together as she began to back away again. "He can't hear or see you, this is all some big misunderstanding... He's talking to somebody else... Because he can't hear or see me."

He cocked a brow, but she was too busy muttering to herself and 'sneakily' retreating to notice it. "Are you touched in the head, little girl?" He queried, and though she could barely make out any of his expressions with that contraption on his face, he seemed faintly amused.

Joanna glared, her somewhat hysterical mumbling coming to a halt at his words, along with the tiny footsteps she'd been taking away from him. She stood up straight, pushing her shoulders back and placing her hands on her hips; meeting his gaze with narrowed green eyes. "I very well could be," She snapped furiously. "I was just _murdered_ so who knows how my brain's faring!"


End file.
